Domestic abuse has always provoked a headline or two, mainly along the lines of the horror of physical attack; black eyes, broken limbs, fractured ribs. With a woman on the receiving end, afraid and confused. According to Refuge – and these are horrific statistics - two women are killed every week and one in four women will experience some form of domestic violence in their lifetimes. Yet only 35% of these crimes are reported to the police. And while women make up 81% of those that are abused – at least as far as statistics can tell - let’s not forget that there is a story which revolves around the remaining 19%. These are men. As with all statistics, numbers and ‘facts’ can always be debated, but we’re all agreed abuse is unacceptable and abhorrent in any form. But why does the issue of abused men seem to receive far less attention?

I have tracked press reports and talked to agencies who run helplines for men who find themselves being abused in some way. More often it is in the form of emotional and psychological abuse. This is difficult to define as some would say put-downs, belittling, and undermining a partner is a potential by-product of any relationship under strain - but where do you draw the line? Suppose it is insidious, continuous and relentless, attacking the man’s sense of self-worth – for example, when he loses his job and has difficulty finding another. ‘You’re a useless (word of your choice)’ might be said in the heat of the moment or triggered by fear of outside pressures (such as not being able to pay the mortgage or rent) but when this escalates to some sort of ‘punishment’ then the fear is men are far more likely to withdraw, and are unable to talk to anybody about it. Unless there is ‘physical’ evidence to show the police, feedback has suggested that men fear more than women that they won’t be believed.

And don’t get me wrong. This is not a simple case of my siding with men against their female aggressors. I am against all forms of abuse: physical, mental, emotional, financial and sexual towards any living being. As a survivor of sustained emotional abuse over 12 years I can speak from all too vivid experience. For me the trauma hasn’t healed despite calling on the help of therapists and healers.

So, as a female survivor of abuse, why should I want to write about men? Maybe it’s because I once hit my now ex-husband when I could no longer cope with his choice of ‘punishment’ - the silent treatment. The rage came from a place I didn’t know existed and was clearly exacerbated by other concerns. My children were suffering badly, and my mother chose not to have treatment for her cancer, losing the will to live as she watched our family being slowly destroyed. Whatever my reason for lashing out, there was no excuse for giving into such a loss of control and attempting to hurt a fellow human being.

It would be easy to say that I write about men as victims to assuage my guilt. Not so. I write about the 19% because it’s clear they don’t have much of a voice of their own – or if they have it’s not being heard.

It seemed that the court accepted that over a two-year period his wife had covered him in bruises, taken an axe to his motorbike, then disappeared overseas with the children, finally filing for divorce and driving him to a mental breakdown – yet he was cast as the ‘provoker’, a villain, and he was still unable to be part of his children’s lives.

I had no business judging two people I didn’t know, and of course I had no way of knowing the truth behind every aspect of his story and whether he was a party to this horrendous chain of events or not. But the devastation in his eyes told me of the lasting pain abuse can cause.

Man or woman, if you are reading this blog, ask yourself some searching questions.

Is there verbal abuse in your relationship? Who belittles who? Public, private or both?

Are there acts of jealously and possessiveness and control – taking away car keys, wallets, isolating your partner from family and friends, constant questioning, checking private mail?

Controlling how the other person spends their money, keeping your partner short of money so they must beg or plead, or any act which provokes a loss of dignity?

Acts of manipulation … If you do/don’t do this, then this will happen. Are there threats of physical violence, withdrawal of support, disengagement, days, months or as in my case, years of the silent treatment?

Refusal to co-operate or communicate to sort out problems?

Men say they don’t speak out because they feel ashamed that they’ve allowed themselves to be beaten down, yet they are not inclined to retaliate. They worry about what will happen to their children. Will their partner turn on them? While we might think men have got the resources to walk out, in fact that’s not always the case. Financial assets are usually jointly owned and the children need a home. Can he afford to rent a flat or a room on his own and still contribute towards the family? What might his family, religious group, colleagues, employer deduce? That he’s not fit for work? Yes I know this applies to women as well. I’ve been there remember? I had to bail my ex-husband out of near insolvency (as well as run my own business) and help my children through it all. But I so desperately wanted to sort it out properly for all our sakes, including his, and I regret the day I lowered myself to his level and lashed out. I was lucky that he didn’t take it any further. And let me ask you – who was the abuser and who the victim? Me for lashing out? Him for provoking me? Who would a court empathise with? The mother desperately trying to keep her family safe and together and snapping under the incredible pressures caused by her partner? Or the husband who was struck, apparently for no other provocation than not speaking his mind?

Not easy is it, to look behind the statistics and find the real story, the truth. That’s why I wrote The Cruelty of Lambs. So you can be the judge as to who the perpetrator is and who the victim is. It’s not clear cut at all. Wherever your judgement falls I think we’re all agreed that abuse, whatever the form it takes, whoever the victim, is completely unacceptable in any society. And we must use every resource at our disposal to ensure we are never led by statistics, but by our concerns for the people behind the numbers.